“What brought you out here at this time of night?” Dustin asked, studying her tense face.
“I just wanted to check and see how everything was going since the hearing. I like to check in with my clients. I also thought I would invite Rachel to lunch. I haven’t made many friends since coming to Treepoint.” Dustin didn’t say anything after her answer. “Since she’s not here you can tell her to give me a call,” Diamond continued on, casually walking towards the door.
“How’d you figure it out?” Dustin asked, making no move to stop her.
Diamond paused, looking at the man nervously. She thought about denying it, but something told her it would be useless. Selling pot for a living would give him the advantage of being used to determining when a person was lying.
“Sam flaunted everyone in front of her parents; it only made sense to wonder about the man she kept secret.”
“I embarrassed her.” Dustin made a wry face, his hand running through his curly hair. “We began seeing each other when she was a freshman in high school. She didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want her rich daddy to know.”
He took a step toward her and Diamond backed away towards the door. Dustin stopped then walked over to the table, putting the gun down.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ms. Richards.”
Diamond let a sigh of relief escape.
“We were in love,” he continued. “She wasn’t like she was until after we broke up. She was always a handful and a smartass, but she wasn’t mean and a slut until after she broke up with me. When her mother died, we were going to sneak away and get married. She was just waiting until the end of the school year then we were going to leave town.”
“What happened?” Diamond asked.
“I don’t know, but I think her father found out and he threatened my family. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She didn’t think I could protect her.” Diamond saw the pain on the man’s face; he looked much older than his years.
“She disappeared for about six months, and when she came back, she wouldn’t talk to me and then she began seeing every man in town who had a hard on for her.”
Diamond felt terrible about every name she had called Samantha Bedford. The young girl had lost her mother then found out she was pregnant. She could only imagine the threats her father would have made to the young woman when he realized she was pregnant by a boy whose family was the biggest pot dealers in the county, if not the state.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
Dustin gave a shake of his head. “I only found out the day she died.”
“That was what the argument was about?” Diamond guessed.
“Yes. I went into the sheriff’s office to see Greer when a phone call came in to the receptionist. I heard her talking to someone from Jamestown. They told her that no further information was available. No one knows what happened to my kid, do they?”
“I don’t think they do, but the sheriff’s office is trying. You know the sheriff better than me, you think he’ll give up?”
“No, but I’m afraid to find out, too. I didn’t know the Sam that opened that motel door. She thought I was Knox coming back for more.” His face showed the pain in his soul that loving the woman had cost him. He was too young to go through this.
In that instant, Diamond hated Vincent Bedford more than she had ever thought it was possible to hate another human being. He was sitting in a jail cell while he was responsible for one man’s death and had precipitated the actions that led to his daughter’s death. If he hadn’t interfered, Dustin and Samantha would probably have married and raised their child together. Vincent Bedford deserved more punishment than he was getting.
“What happened when she saw it was you?”
“She freaked out.”
Diamond was sure she had. Samantha had probably been using men to forget Dustin for a long time. To see him walk in, she could only imagine how humiliated the woman had felt.
“She started screaming at me, throwing stuff. I tried to calm her down and ask about my kid. She told me to get out and started pushing me toward the door. I shoved her back and she fell and hit her head on the side of the table.” Dustin buried his face in his hands. “I called the ambulance and left. I knew that, with my reputation, everyone would think I did it deliberately. I didn’t even really shove her, I just jerked my arm away from her and she lost her balance. I don’t know anymore. I keep going over it in my head and all I keep seeing is her lying there on the floor,” Dustin confessed.
“Dustin, I wish you would have come to me. I would’ve helped.” A sudden thought came to mind. “Are you the one who destroyed my office?”
“No, why would I do that?” he asked, confused.
“That’s what I want to know,” Diamond said. Now she was the one confused. If he hadn’t trashed her office, who had?
“I didn’t touch your office,” Dustin said.